Standing or Sitting in the work place

Posted on October 06, 2015
by Beth Hartman

It has long been established that sitting for long periods of time at an office desk can cause various health issues.

Studies have found that sedentary behavior, including sitting for extended periods, increases the risk for developing dozens of chronic conditions, from cancer and diabetes to cardiovascular disease and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Some ergonomics experts warn that too much standing also can have negative effects on health, including a greater risk for varicose veins, back and foot problems, and carotid artery disease.

The key thing to remember is that both sitting and standing for long periods of time are both bad for you.

For every half-hour working in an office, people should sit for 20 minutes, stand for eight minutes and then move around and stretch for two minutes, standing for more than 10 minutes tends to cause people to lean, which can lead to back problems and other musculoskeletal issues.

Physical activity also played a role in people's risk of NAFLD: Those who were physically active were 20 percent less likely to develop the disease.

"The amount of time spent doing sedentary activity such as sitting at a computer or watching TV has increased dramatically in recent years," Dr. Seungho Ryu, professor of occupational and environmental medicine at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in South Korea and lead author of the study, told Live Science. Now, "more than half of the average person's waking day involves sedentary activities," he said.

In the study, the researchers looked at more than 139,000 Korean men and women who reported their levels of physical activity and sitting time. NAFLD was confirmed using ultrasounds.

The average age of the participants was 39.9 years, according to the study. Because the people in the study were generally healthy -- young and middle-age men and women -- it's unlikely that other health problems can explain the link between sitting time and physical activity with NALFD, Ryu said.

Today most Americans, while maybe not aware of all of the studies being done on sitting for long periods of time in the work place. They do know that not doing any physical activity during the day is detrimental to a healthy life style. We have seen an increase in the purchase of personal heart rate monitors and activity monitors over the recent years. Which can be attributed to people becoming aware of the benefits of being more active.

There are many types of heart rate monitors available from known manufacturers like Garmin who has the Garmin Forerunner 225 or another manufacturer like Mio Alpha 2 Heart Rate Sports watch. Both examples will provide you with all the necessary data in order to track not only your resting and active heart rate, but also your endurance levels and the amount of calories you have burned during your workout activity.

So get out of the chair, lace up a pair of walking/running shoe and strap on your choice of an activity monitor, with or without a heart rate monitor and stave off the effects of sitting in front of that computer day after day.